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Ashamed to be a bitcoiner – Bitcoin Expo London

I’m proud of my involvement with the positives of bitcoin and I speak loudly and proudly about bitcoin wherever I go, but today I had an unexpected experience in the last place on earth I’d have expected to.

The Bitcoin Expo in London was very well attended with a reasonably consistent demographic. Males in the 25-35 age group dominated, with a sprinkling of younger men, older men and the rare female. The only clear divide in attendees appeared to be their state of cleanliness and matching attitudes.

On the one hand there were many polished and respectable young men with relaxed but well kept clothes, subtle aftershave, and open clear eyes. They were friendly, open to meeting people, and overtly positive in their general presentation.

But then there were the others. Almost like the occupy movement had rolled out of bed after months in a tent, having avoided showers and deodorant, swarming together in a bleary eyed collision of half present minds and merging into a single cloud of overwhelming stench.

The former group I had expected, however the latter group of borderline homeless junkies came as an unexpected shock. Perhaps I’d assumed everyone attending a bitcoin conference would have had some financial interest in bitcoin, and having had such an interest would be on average, rather wealthy. Perhaps I’d expected the intelligence which is inherently required in forming an understanding of bitcoin was incongruent with the shabby degenerate lifestyle which results from poverty rather than intellect.

I know what you might be thinking now, you think I’m judging people on their appearance and I’m being a pompous elitist snob. To be frank I do judge people on their appearance and you’d be lying if you denied it yourself, however being in the company of those who appear less fortunate doesn’t make me ashamed. I lived in a third world country for four years and made great efforts to connect with the community and help where I could.

No, what made me ashamed was to be associated with a culture of anarchism and mindless libertarianism. I was ashamed to share a label with the inconsiderate arseholes who wouldn’t allow someone to pass after a polite request. I was ashamed to be even remotely connected with the uni-student politics of idealistic (but disconnected and devoid of reality), ill considered, hippy crap. I was ashamed that, in the country where I’ve made my home, Cody Wilson received loud support from the aforementioned hobos.

I should have guessed Cody Wilson would be spouting anarchist crap from the second I realised he was connected with retard dela retard Amir Taaki, but I did not guess in my wildest dreams that so much support existed for effectively creating civil war.

I couldn’t help but marvel at the irony of libertarian anarchists attending a capitalist conference, because lets face it, bitcoin is money, and further it royally pissed me off to see a continued attempt to connect bitcoin with all this misguided bullshit.

Conferences about bitcoin are not the place for libertarian/anarchist hate, they are not the place to incite revolution, infact the the libertarian/anarchist paranoid self destruction is completely beside the point at a gathering to discuss and be excited by money.

So when Cody Wilson pumped his fist into the air and declared “there will be 1000 silk roads”, which was greeted with a few loud cheers, I felt ashamed to be in the same room with, let alone vaguely associated with, these arrogant, ignorant, waste of space and offensively odorous wankers.

And then there was Wai H Tsang, a person I’m sure is very smart, but whose respect for others is deplorably deficient. As a speaker at the conference Wai was allocated a slot, which he liberally over-ran, and when asked to wind it up proclaimed (paraphrasing) “This is an open community, I’ll do what I want. Do you people want me to stop speaking?” and carried on. The arrogance of this cretin and the disrespect he showed to fellow speakers, was blood curdling. I’m vividly reminded that IQ does not equal EQ.

All in all today has left me with one musing. Bitcoin and its history have resulted in a very dangerous and serious situation… there are now quite a few extremely wealthy drug addicts, and what do drug addicts do with money? I expect natural selection will result in a large amount of orphaned coins, and frankly at the moment I’m not sure I mind a great deal.

If that is all true then clearly the post wasn’t directed at you – the dutch have a saying “if a shoe fits, you put it on yourself” – I think considering you’ve made such a lovely comment I’m not sure the post wasn’t actually directed at you, but I’ll leave that for you to decide.

My main point is that bitcoin is not libertarianism/anarchy and bitcoin conferences should not be about that. A lot of the anarcho-libertarians in the bitcoin community are… we’ll, as I’ve said above.

Get off your high horse. I’m not an anarchist, there are some valid points, but I believe you should never pigeon hole yourself with a bad label like anarchist, democrat, capitalist, or republican, it’s absolutely ridiculous and limiting to do this.

When you “identify” as one of these labels you immediately co-sign piles of established bullshit that might not necessarily be your own moral choice, and most times people label themselves just to fit-in.

By NOT identifying you allow yourself to have progressive, meaningful and intelligent conversations with people from other political parties.

Look at historical similar events when a large, money infatuated group of 25-35 year old, white skinned,shaven, “well” dressed men got together in collar shirts who didn’t like “different” people. They went on to form notable groups like the Nazi party. Peace out.

“So when Cody Wilson pumped his fist into the air and declared “there will be 1000 silk roads”, which was greeted with a few loud cheers, I felt ashamed to be in the same room with, let alone vaguely associated with, these arrogant, ignorant, waste of space and offensively odorous wankers.”

I would’ve paid some serious Bitcoin to be in the presence of a man of such great consequence and to feel the same sense of triumph everyone else felt as those words were spoken by Cody.

Judging by this post, it looks like anyone at the event you felt uncomfortable with must have been a person worth knowing, and it’s too bad I missed out.

But hopefully you felt alienated enough to remove yourself from the bitcoin movement altogether so it can remain true to it’s original spirit.

Stefan, why do I have to be either an anarchist or a statist? Can I not just enjoy bitcoin for the technological genius?

Bitcoin conferences should be about bitcoin – take your “fall of the government, civil war” crap to an anarchists conference. I’m a massive pacifist and people who promote violence (3d printed guns/civil unrest) are people I don’t want to associate with because I verdantly disagree with what they stand for.

People who want to promote bitcoin, which we all are, need to realise the bad stinky image isn’t helping.